Touch screen technology is now used widely as an alternative to over-the-counter or person-to-person interactions for a wide variety of commercial activities. For example touch screen terminals can be found in public areas such as airport terminals and railway stations to enable customers to check in for flights or purchase tickets. However, surveys may be carried out using a variety of computerised touch-screen survey equipment, for example personal computers (PCs), Tablet PCs or personal digital assistants (PDAs).
The touch screen displays a sequence of questions or instructions that the customer responds to by touching a particular area of the screen (usually displayed and referred to as a button). The touch screens include sensors (for example capacitive sensors) that detect the location of the screen surface at which the customer touches the screen, and thereby detect when a button has been touched. Touch screen surveys employ this technology to obtain customer responses to questionnaires, usually by locating a touch screen terminal nearby a point of sale. For example, a touch screen survey terminal may be placed close to the checkouts in a supermarket, so that a customer leaving the checkout is able answer market survey questions relating to the purchase of goods in the supermarket. The touch screen will display a series of questions together with answer “buttons” from which the customer can select an answer by touching the appropriate button.
One problem with these touch screen surveys is that a significant proportion of survey responses are not serious, but are nuisance responses. These may arise as a result of people playing with the touch screen apparatus without considering the questions posed. For example, a person (possibly a child) playing with the apparatus may just touch the screen at random locations, or repeatedly at the same location. In other cases, respondents may just touch buttons in a repetitive or random fashion without bothering to read the questions, or may start answering questions and then just walk away without finishing the survey. Another form of nuisance response may arise where people seek to try and manipulate the statistical results (for example members of staff in the organisation to which the survey relates). It has been found that as many as 30% or more of recorded survey responses can be nuisance responses of this nature. It is therefore necessary to decide, for each recorded response, whether or not the respondent was seriously answering the survey questions. One way to do this is for a person to review the responses of every survey, which is a time-consuming human occupation. However, some nuisance responses may not be readily apparent to the reviewer or may be impossible to identify even by human intervention.
The present invention has been conceived with the foregoing in mind.